(WHDH) — The World Health Organization earlier this week announced six conditions that every country must meet before the coronavirus lockdown can be safely lifted.
Experts at WHO warned that members of the public across the world should be prepared to “change our behaviors for the foreseeable future.”
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, said the pandemic will decelerate at a much slower rate than at which it spread but also offered up a six-step plan that every country must abide by in order to transition back to normalcy.
“One of the main things we’ve learned in the past months about COVID-19 is that the faster all cases are found, tested, isolated and cared for, the harder we make it for the virus to spread,” Ghebreyesus said. “This principle will save lives and mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.”
One of the main things we’ve learned in the past months about #COVID19 is that the faster all cases are found, tested, isolated & cared for, the harder we make it for the virus to spread. This principle will save lives & mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) April 15, 2020
Ghebreyesus’ six conditions that must be achieved are as follows:
- COVID‑19 transmission is controlled to a level of sporadic cases and clusters of cases, all from known contacts or importations and the incidence of new cases
should be maintained at a level that the health system can manage with substantial clinical care capacity in reserve. - Sufficient health system and public health capacities are in place to enable the major shift from detecting and treating mainly serious cases to detecting and
isolating all cases, irrespective of severity and origin. - Outbreak risks in high-vulnerability settings are minimized, which requires all major drivers and/or amplifiers of COVID‑19 transmission to have been identified, with appropriate measures in place to minimize the risk of new outbreaks and of nosocomial transmission.
- Workplace preventive measures are established to reduce risk, including the appropriate directives and capacities to promote and enable standard COVID-19
prevention measures in terms of physical distancing, hand washing, respiratory etiquette and, potentially, temperature monitoring. - Risk of imported cases managed through an analysis of the likely origin and routes of importations, and measures would be in place to rapidly detect and
manage suspected cases among travelers. - Communities are fully engaged and understand that the transition entails a major shift, from detecting and treating only serious cases to detecting and isolating all cases, that behavioral prevention measures must be maintained, and that all individuals have key roles in enabling and in some cases implementing new control measures.
The worldwide coronavirus death toll is approaching 130,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
There have been 957 reported deaths in Massachusetts since the outbreak.
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